Information Related to "World News Review April/May 2000"
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In Brief... World News Reviewby Darris McNeely, Cecil E. Maranville and John Ross SchroederZimbabwe—a Crisis—Torn Country Zimbabwe, a once prosperous African nation, is seriously short of food, and its lack of fuel has brought industry to a standstill. The country's infrastructure is fraying badly at the edges with schools and hospitals struggling to survive. Most blame these humanly caused misfortunes on President Robert Mugabe's brutal regime. As The Sunday Telegraph reported, "With the country's economy in tatters, thanks to years of misrule, Mugabe thought he had a guaranteed vote winner when his loyal constitutional panel drew up clause 57, to enshrine land confiscation and demand compensation for white farmers by [from] the old colonial power: Britain." Zimbabwe's government was in shock after the people produced the courage to stand up to the regime by voting "no" in the recent constitutional referendum. Yet there are reports of the illegal occupation of quite a number of white-owned farms in spite of that national vote. Moreover, the Zimbabwe dollar was worth 50 British pence when President Mugabe assumed power. It is now valued at 1.5 pence. And as The Independent on Sunday reported, "Every week 1,200 Zimbabweans die of AIDS and life expectancy since 1980 has fallen from 59 to 42." A beautiful country has apparently been laid waste and many of British descent are applying for passports at the British High Commission in the nation's capital, Harare, preparing to emigrate. ( The Sunday Telegraph, The Independent on Sunday, The Daily Mail (all London).) Nuclear Transfer Technology—Cloning Pigs and "Growing" Organs Genetic engineering and the cloning of pigs have come together to encourage hope in the field of medical transplants. Some 60,000 people in the U.S. are on a waiting list to receive a new organ. Finding a donor is only the beginning, for every patient faces the real potential of having a new organ rejected immediately upon transplantation. Large quantities of powerful anti-rejection drugs are administered, but they weaken the person's entire system. Once the initial hurdle is passed, rejection is still possible and anti-rejection medication is necessary over the long term. Therefore, quality of life may be far from ideal. What can be done to improve the transplant patient's odds of finding a donor, surviving the surgery and not rejecting the new organ in the long term? Enter the common pig. Well, not so common, actually. Enter the genetically altered, cloned pig. Animal-to-human organ donation is known as "xenotransplantation." If the technology to grow acceptable animal organs can be mastered, an unlimited supply of organs will be available for transplantation into humans. The same technology that brought the world Dolly, the cloned sheep, has made it possible to clone pigs. That technology is nuclear transfer, removing the nucleus from an egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus of a cell that scientists wish to clone. Cloning pigs is more difficult that cloning sheep, cattle or mice-all of which have been done. Some new techniques were developed to make the cloning of pigs possible. Why work with pigs? The organs of a pig are closest in size to those of humans. Biogenetic engineering enables scientists to remove a gene that would cause the initial rejection of an organ, thus bypassing the first major hurdle to transplantation. They can also add genes that would slow the long-term rejection of the transplanted organ. The genetically altered pig could be cloned and reproduced as often as desired. Voilà-an "organ factory" is created. The first cloned piglets were born in March, announced the company that created Dolly, the cloned sheep. PPL Therapeutics Inc. has been working on the project for some time and sees the potential for medical use as "huge." Parallel research is ongoing in taking DNA from the patient who needs a new organ, and literally growing a new one. Nuclear transfer is also the basis for these experiments. Most likely the first application will be in creating insulin-producing cells to replace nonfunctioning ones in the pancreas of diabetics. This biotechnology, scientists project, will enable them to grow entire organs, including hearts, muscles, bones and skin. Advanced Cell Technology, a Massachusetts company, has been able to create embryos from cow eggs with the nuclei removed and replaced by human DNA. The cells grow into an embryonic life that produces human embryonic stem cells-the basic building block cells from which all cells grow. The biocommand that will "tell" the stem cells what kind of cell to grow into has not yet been discovered. The ethical questions are great. On the one side are those who see this as tampering with life and on the other side are those who see this as making life possible. Researcher Michael West, who works for Advanced Cell Technology, says that since they work with embryos that are less than 14 days old, "There is no human entity there." That's difficult to accept, when you believe as the UCGIA does, that life begins at conception. ("First Cloned Piglet Birth Near," UPI, Feb. 16, 2000; "Scientists Optimistic About Sheep Cloning Implications," UPI, Sept. 27, 1999.) Rabbis Sanction Gay "Marriages" Rabbis in America's largest Jewish movement have declared that they can officiate at same-sex unions, but stopped short of calling them marriages. The decision was made in secret after a debate by members of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the rabbinical arm of the liberal group known as Reform Judaism, which has more than 1.5 million members. The resolution backed any rabbi's decision to preside over affirmation of a gay union using any "appropriate Jewish ritual." In a compromise that made passage of the measure possible, the group recognized its divisions of opinion by agreeing also to support any rabbis who choose not to officiate at such ceremonies. Other American Christian and Jewish denominations are to debate homosexual weddings in the coming months. The issue will be opposed by the Presbyterian, United Methodist and Episcopal churches. Until now, only the Unitarian Church and the United Church of Christ, both small Christian groups, have formally allowed clergy to officiate at same-sex unions. Two Jewish groups, the Conservative branch and the Orthodox movement, remain firmly opposed to the idea as contrary to Jewish law. The Torah calls homosexuality an abomination. The vote reflects the spirit of the Reform movement, founded in the 19th century. Its members do not consider themselves bound by traditional Jewish law. Rather, they believe that rules, such as those governing the Sabbath and diet, should be more in keeping with the times. (The Times of London, March 31, 2000.) |
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Other Articles by Darris McNeely
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Origin of article "World News Review April/May 2000"
Keywords: Zimbabwe xenotransplantation genetic engineering cloning same sex marriage
Cloning:
